According to the OC Register, phony 4th District candidate, Scott Markowitz pleaded guilty yesterday. In exchange for the plea Markowitz gets a day in jail, probation and a month of community service. Felony charges are dismissed by DA Todd Spitzer.
I’ve never seen the wheels of justice grind out a product so quickly.
But what is the product?
As FFFF writers and commenters have noted, Markowitz’s fate was largely irrelevant given that the whole thing was orchestrated by others connected to the cause of electing Vivian “Kitty” Jaramillo, including politicians and Democrat operatives.
Since prosecutors are not given to giving anything away I think we can speculate that Markowitz named a name. Or two. We may surmise, I think, that the investigation into who set Markowitz up in the first place is ongoing. On the other hand this sort of case is probably perceived by the DA as a hassle without a lot of glamor and some potential political pushback from Dems he needs in a non-partisan election.
As to Markowitz, maybe we can let the poor sap get on with his life, free of the encumbrance of a felony rap.
Phony Fullerton 4th District candidate Scott Markowitz has been arrested by the DA and charged with perjury and falsification of public documents. Somebody other than Markowitz circulated his nominating papers, but he attested that he did.
Normally, in these types of situations that would be the end of the story. Except that in the case of Markowitz – a political unknown – he had help. How much coaching he got, and by whom, remains something of a mystery, but it’s obvious that his perjury was suborned by others.
I’d sell out my own mother for 10 votes, and I have…
We do know that one of his manipulators is the former Executive Director of the OC Democrat Party, one Ajay Mohan who accompanied Markowitz to the City Clerk’s office to pull papers. Was Mohan the circulator? Was it somebody else, somebody that the nominators trusted? Who wrote the carefully crafted and cynical MAGA statement Markowitz got on the ballot? Certainly not Markowitz.
Happy Jaramillo…
Who else may have benefitted from the scam will give us a clue to the extent of the election rigging. Vivian Jaramillo is the number one suspect since Markowitz’s candidacy was meant to attract non-Latino voters from Linda Whitaker.
I will get what I want, one way or another…
One layer deeper, we can discern the shadowy figure of Ahmad Zahra, Fullerton’s 5th District representative who desperately needs Jaramillo’s support to finally become America’s first gay, Arab, Muslim Mayor; and who also needs Jaramillo to finally bring home the marijuana dispensary bacon.
Then there’s Ada Briceno, the current Chairwoman of the OC Democrat Party, the group that endorsed Jaramillo without even talking to anybody else. There’s a big prestige issue here, the ambitious Briceno has a record – she was certainly aware of the Tony Castro scandal in 2022, when her ED Mohan created the fake Latino candidate in Fullerton’s 5th District to protect the egregious Ahmad Zahra.
Slithering things…
The name Aaruni Thakur has also been mentioned, in the comments section below. He deserves special attention. Apparently his family lives and owns property on Wooodcrest, not far from the abode of Scott Markowitz. He and his family have given a lot of money to Jaramillo, and his previous fake carpetbaggery in the 4th District in 2020 gives a fine example of his moral compass.
Above the lowly riffraff are politicians who have invested their political prestige in Jaramillo’s candidacy and who may want to protect that investment while also creating office holders beholden to them. These include Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk, State Senator Josh Newman, and Congressman Lou Correa. How shallow or how deep are the roots of the Markowitz Conspiracy?
Bushala says stop!
All of these issues are presented as a prelude to the topic of this post, which is a letter from Fullerton activist, Tony Bushala to the District Attorney Todd Spitzer asking that the investigation into the situation be continued to find out who got Markowitz to lie.
It’s very clear that at least one other person was involved in suborning perjury. One would have to be relentlessly stupid, a Kennedy Observer, in fact, to believe that Markowitz the political novice, himself was the sole director of this play; that he cooked up the plan; that he decided to create a campaign committee for appearances; that he decided to change his party affiliation; that he that he made sure his new affiliation was on his FPCC documents when it wasn’t required; that he, for some reason, needed and recruited a surrogate to circulate his petition; that he conceived and wrote his ballot statement; that he knew nothing else was required and quietly disappeared, his apologists at the Observer saying he was somehow “threatened” into hiding.
There is an old Latin apothegm: qui bono? Roughly translated the question asks “who benefits” from a given situation whose origins may not be completely clear. Well, let’s find out.
As FFFF has continually claimed, Markowitz was a set-up candidate, created by prominent Democrats to draw votes away from Linda Whitaker to help her opponent, Vivian Jaramillo.
I’d sell out my mother for 10 votes, and I have…
Apparently, Markowitz’s nominating signatures were collected by somebody else, but he signed the affidavit claiming he did. That’s perjury, and substantiates our conclusions about the rest of the sordid scheme.
Perjury is a felony, and whoever set him up for this had better hope that Markowitz is willing to keep his mouth shut. If he sings he may very well incriminate the people who dragged him into this perjury, in which case we would have a conspiracy to commit a crime, which is also a felony.
Another DA investigation…
Democrat Ajay Mohan is in this up to his eyeballs, of course. What about others? I keep hearing the names Ahmad Zahra and Aaruni Thakur, Ada Briceno and even Congressman Lou Correa.
On a clear day you can see forever…
Did Fullerton Observer Diane Vena know about this? She seems to have concocted tales to tell the gullible about the details of her participation. What about any of the other nominators? What about the Fullerton Observer itself, that has studiously avoided any mention of the perjury scandal.
The immediate question is what impact this will have on the 4th District election. Mass circulated campaign material has already tied Markowitz as a set up to help Jaramillo, so this is just more ammunition for the next couple of weeks. The beneficiaries of this news are obviously Linda Whitaker and Jamie Valencia, the former of which can point to the conspiracy as evidence of her own election chances.
The other day FFFF shared a letter from Fullerton activist Tony Bushala to District Attorney Todd Spitzer requesting that his office refer the sham candidacy of Scott Markowitz to the apolitical Orange County Grand Jury for investigation.
Bushala says stop!
Bushala followed up with Spitzer a few days later. According to Bushala he received a curt response from Sptizer that the latter can’t comment as the matter is now under active investigation. Well, that’s good news.
Someone had to get his hands dirty…
Whether this means a preliminary route to the Grand Jury remains to be seen, but hopefully Markowitz will be receiving a call from the DAs office wanting to know a few things. Ditto the Diane Vena and the other liberal Dems who signed Markowitz’s nominating papers, and of course Ajay Mohan, the Dem operative lowlife who pulled the same shit in Fullerton at the behest of Ahmad Zahra in 2022.
Hopefully, Vivian Jaramillo, the candidate who stands to gain the most from this fraud will get a call too, to see what she knows about this scam.
UPDATE 09/05/24 : It turns out that Scott Markowitz is now registered as a Republican, having re-registered after FFFF was notified as his status as a Democrat. This doesn’t make anything better for Markowitz, who is up to his eyeballs in this deceit perpetrated on 4th District voters, and sanctioned, apparently by the Democrat establishment. Next time you hear some Dem bleating their typical moral superiority, please direct them to our Scott Markowitz posts.
Of course he is.
We could have guessed that by the solid Democrat infrastructure behind his fraudulent campaign. His handler is the former Executive Director of the OC Democrat Party – Ajay Mohan – who has pulled the same stunt in Fullerton before. Markowitz’s nominators are liberal Democrat members. One, Diane Vena, has already endorsed another candidate in the 4th District race, who stands to benefit from the Markowitz fraud.
And the Markowitz ballot statement is in direct contravention of what you would expect from a Democrat. As a reminder, here is Scotty’s campaign manifesto:
It’s pretty funny how he mentions failed leadership, to stain the name Whitaker, since Linda is outgoing councilman Bruce Whitaker’s wife; then he launches into pure Republican exhortation to “reign(sic) back spending.” Then it devolves into a pure MAGA rant about America First, patriots, individual liberty and strong law enforcement, the antithesis of the sort of statement you would expect from a Democrat.
Yeah, this is another Mohan Shuffle to draw votes away from one candidate, Republican Linda Whitaker for the benefit of Vivian Jaramillo – the one and only person interviewed for the Democrat Party endorsement, and endorsement that occurred even before nominating papers were taken out. It’s corruption pure and simple. It’s election fraud.
A couple of month ago a delicate young shoot named Elijah Manassero popped up on the Fullerton scene like a new flower nourished by a spring shower.
Who was he, and where did he come from? Who knew? He repeated all the talking points of the Fullerton Observer crew, for which he began writing “articles” under the guise of news. He posted comments on line. His themes were always the same: attacking the council majority and decrying the influence of Tony Bushala; particularly obsessed has he been with the Bushalas effort to lease the long-abandoned portion of the loading dock at the Santa Fe Depot.
Good questions, but getting good answers?
Just yesterday I posted about Manassero’s ridiculous complaint to the FPPC regarding a perfectly legal campaign donation by George Bushala Jr. to Councilman Nick Dunlap. There may be others that haven’t surfaced yet. A couple days ago sweet Elijah published a story in the Observer about a lawsuit levied by a disgruntled son against everyone else in the entire Bushala family. It wasn’t newsworthy, but its purpose was to embarrass Tony Bushala by giving credence to the allegations in the lawsuit.
I got the feeling there was more to young Elijah than random concerned citizenry. I think I was right.
In over his head. Little fish, big pond…
Sources are saying that fresh young Elijah is working for Connor Traut, the Buena Park carpetbagging councilman who is running for County Supervisor. How does attacking the Bushala family advance Traut’s goal? Easy. His only opponent so far is Fullerton’s mayor, Fred Jung.
Diane Vena surveying the candidate roster…
Many people are starting to ask questions. Questions like: is the Fullerton Observer being used by Traut to create fodder for a political campaign against Jung? Are the Kennedy Sisters complicit in this or just brainless dupes? They certainly ran cover for Team Jaramillo by actively ignoring the Scott Markowitz perjury scam conspiracy, so we know they have no moral compunction against this sort of thing; and they have no professional or personal code of ethics to restrain them.
Gloves are so Nineteenth Century…
According to the Fullerton Boohoo narrative, Jung is a puppet of Tony Bushala’s, and every effort to tie them together in various nefarious schemes would be used in next year’s campaign. Will it work?
Previous efforts to attack Tony Bushala as part of a broader campaign have failed miserably, most notably in 2012. In that year’s recall the anti-recall efforts were focused on making Bushala look bad. They lost that election by 30 points.
Catch and release?
Connor Traut may think this is a winning strategy but he is wasting his money if he is paying tender young Elijah anything. Angering the deep-pocketed Bushala clan is not a way to get yourself elected.
This email and the attached letter are a follow-up to your correspondence dated April 9, 2025, regarding my request to further investigate the Scott Markowitz scandal. Less than a year ago, Mr. Markowitz was caught and arrested by the O.C.D.A. for perjury and falsifying a government document, specifically his nomination papers for the November 2024 election for a City Council seat in District 4.
As stated in your letter, the new evidence I am providing proves that Mr. Markowitz did not act alone in his attempt to defraud the voters in the November 8, 2024, election. Based on the new facts contained in the attached letter, it is clear that a conspiracy to suborn perjury was in effect.
Please review the contents of my attached letter (below) and let me know what additional information you may need from me to assist the DA in prosecuting the accomplice to Mr. Markowitz’s scheme to suborn perjury and defraud the voters of Fullerton, District 4.
Andre Charles is some sort of political consultant for Democrat politicians and causes. That’s what he tells us on his rather uninformative website. What he does between elections is not mentioned. He is also the President of the North Orange County Democrats, and his name has surfaced in connection with the phony and perjurious Scott Markowitz candidacy in Fullerton last fall.
My current interest with Mr. Charles has to do with his activities in the same election. Why? Because he was paid $4000 by a political action committee sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324 – a union for grocery store employees. You may remember the name of this group: Working Families for Kitty Jaramillo.
“Working Families” worked hard for Jaramillo, funneling $60,000 through the national HQ in Washington to fund their support for Jaramillo. Charles got some of that gravy:
Well, there’s nothing wrong, so far. At least on the surface. He’s a Dem working for Dems and that’s his job, part time or otherwise. It probably seems a little strange that a grocery store worker’s union would be involved in a local, small-time election.
But of course that’s not the whole story. See, Working Families not only represents the guy trimming lettuce in the produce section of your supermarket; they also represent workers trimming another green growing thing, namely cannabis.
The real money motive in marijuana dispensaries comes from the legalized dope cartel itself, not the promise of the union dues of a few dozen workers; even the least cynical person must wonder a little exactly who ponied up that $60,000, laundered through the national HQ.
Anyway, I digress. The real issue here is not the disheveled Charles’s job, day or moonlight. It’s the fact that his better half is none other than Shana Charles, the bloviating and sanctimonious councilmember for District 3.
Happy couple…
Let me synopsize: Mr. Charles is the financial beneficiary of four grand in marijuana lobby money to do something to prop up the campaign of Vivian Jaramillo, a vocal cannabis dispensary advocate. And his fellow beneficiary, Mrs. Charles, is in a position to agendize reopening the issue of legalized MJ in Fullerton and using it as a remedy for Fullerton’s budgetary woes. And she would also be able to influence the zoning regulations that make winners and losers in this business, to wit: the dispensary store owners and their immediate residential neighbors.
It’s only wrong if you do it!
A few months ago the Kennedy Sisters – who scratch and peck out the Fullerton Observer – made sure to review the fall campaign financial activity of their enemies, Jung, Valencia, and Dunlap. They omitted investigation of the same for their failed darling, Jaramillo.
Ostrich egg on face…
And they never once addressed the activities of Working Families during or after the election. The silence was deafening. Even if they had they would have glossed over the relationship of marijuana money and the spouse of a councilmember they hold dear.
Does she need to come clean?
When the defunct disaster known as Walk on Wilshire was in its oxygen tent, the Observer, Ahmad Zahra, and a few of their running dogs tried real hard to make a legal issue of campaign donors affecting council decisions. Hopefully the same solicitude for public probity will be applied, when appropriate, to Mrs. Charles, who was the direct beneficiary of a big monied interest that poured tens of thousands into a Fullerton political campaign.
On Tuesday George A. Bushala returned to the Fullerton City Council Chambers to address the the issue of Ahmad Zahra’s Marriage Fraud to gain permanent residency status. That was entertaining as Zahra got into a huff, interrupted, cried, got up and left the room. Then Bushala expanded on his thesis, noting that Zahra gets away with his behavior thanks the connivance of the fake news Fullerton Observer, a self-styled newspaper that is incompetent, always prejudiced, and that has gone out of it’s way to insinuate libels against people just like him.
In a high state of pique the Kennedy Sisters published their usual blog recap of public comments; but they let their self-righteous hosannas get the better of them.
First they recount an entire dialog between Zahra, Fred Jung and the City Attorney – none of which actually occurred.
A sense of irony being nothing if not completely missed by the Kennedy Sisters, Bushala’s speech is followed by one of those obnoxious “Editor” notes that are the hallmark of the Observer. This one is so faint it’s almost impossible to read, but really it’s just a lame daisy chain of excuses, self-righteousness and pro-Zahra bullshit that ends with an accusation that Bushala spreads falsehoods and she (which ever sister scribbled this) won’t tolerate it!
The Observer is “news of the people by the people,” donchaknow, the activist Mother that begat all sorts of save this and thats. They strive to get the truth out, so long as “truth” is compatible with their own warped, worldview. We all saw how mightily the Kennedy Sisters avoided the the story of the fake Markowitz candidacy. In fact Sharon seemed to involve herself in the cover-up by coaching the hapless Diane Vena.
And thus the circle is closed as the Kennedys perform yet again the very thing of which George Bushala accused them.
The facts are clear. There are no falsehoods related about Zahra. Everything Bushala said was a matter of fact, and FFFF has copies of the documents to prove it. If one wishes to question Zahra’s motives for running down to Little Rock, Arkansas to marry a female citizen, one is not spreading falsehoods, but rather is positing the most likely scenario.
The Kennedys believe “Dr.” Zahra is honorable and transparent – despite all the evidence to the contrary. This utterly slavish devotion renders them incapable to see their own culpable participation in Zahra’s lies. From his assault and battery case, to his Observer-enabled plagiarism they’ve been in lockstep with this Middle Eastern miscreant.
Last August supporters of Fullerton 4th District Council candidate, Democrat Vivian Jaramillo, created a fake “conservative” candidate to draw votes away from the person presumed to be Jaramillo’s principal opponent – Linda Whitaker. The candidate, Scott Markowitz, committed, and plead guilty to perjury.
It’s abundantly clear that at least one person helped phony candidate Scott Markowitz commit the perjury when he falsely swore that he collected his nominating signatures. How is it clear? Because at least one of his nominators told the District Attorney Todd Spitzer that it wasn’t Markowitz who got them to sign, it was someone else; either that or Markowitz himself volunteered the information, which isn’t likely since he was arrested and booked into the Santa Ana Jail.
Speculation is increasing and questions are still being asked, such as: what’s the name of the person or persons who suborned Marko’s perjury, and why hasn’t Spitzer prosecuted him/her/them? In fact, a Public Records Act request was recently made to Spitzer’s office to reveal the name of the person or persons involved in the Markowitz case.
I’m not talking…
Back in the fall, suspicion fell immediately on a guy named Ajay Mohan, a former Democrat operative who held Markowitz’s hand at the City Clerk’s office while picking up nominating materials. But could Mohan have known any of the nominators well enough to get them to sign the papers of a MAGA-sounding candidate?
The Usual Suspects are smiling. For now.
Some folks behind the scenes put early money on creepy and desperate Councilman Ahmad Zahra, the immigrant marriage fraudster and serial prevaricator. Then attention turned to the equally seedy Aruni Thakur, the guy who tried to get elected to the Fullerton City Council in 2020 in a district he didn’t live in. Both are well-known local Democrat office holders who would have been familiar to the Democrat nominators like our old friend Diane Vena. Hey, what about Jesus Quirk-Silva, the dim-witted ex-councilman and husband of wannabe king/queenmaker, Assemblycreature Sharon Quirk?
Recently a new front runner has emerged, a chap named Andre Charles. Charles revels in the lofty title of President of the North Orange County Democrats club. His wife, the self-important, wordy, and ingratiating gasbag, Shana Charles, is on the City Council. Charles had both the motive and the means to sucker local Dems to nominate Markowitz in absentia. Indeed, several nominators of the faux Trumpy Markowitz are members of Charles’ Democrat club. Hmm.
Spitzer gets choked up…
So what was the result of the PRA request? Predictably, the DA’s office isn’t answering, saying they don’t have to – the records are confidential even in closed cases. But if no other crimes were committed, then who cares, right? Yet the response from some guy named Wayne Philips in the DA’s office does include this tidbit:
Is this merely a boiler plate brush-off, or is some investigation really still underway? Personally, I doubt any investigation is going on, but if I were one of the perps involved I’d still be a little nervous. There are probably lots of weak links in the chain of this scandal, and even Spitzer may be induced to do his job if evidence he is now suppressing is published.
